The League of Women Voters urges you to call or email your state representatives and ask them to vote against HB 637, a bill that would prevent Pennsylvania from joining the 11-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
The bill is deceptively named the “Pennsylvania Carbon Dioxide Cap and Trade Authorization Act,” but it is really intended to prevent Pennsylvania from joining the highly successful RGGI and thwart Gov. Tom Wolf’s efforts to join the initiative through executive order and regulatory action.
The RGGI is a long-standing cooperative effort among the states of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Virginia to cap carbon dioxide pollution from power plants through a cap and invest program.
Within the RGGI states, regulated power plants must acquire one RGGI CO2 allowance for every short ton of CO2 they emit. The RGGI states distribute allowances at quarterly auctions, where they can be purchased by power plants and other entities.
In this way, the RGGI states have already reduced emissions by more than 50%—twice as fast as the nation as a whole—and raised over $4 billion to invest into local communities.
Seventy percent of Pennsylvanians support RGGI as an efficient and equitable means of lowering carbon dioxide emissions. Proponents estimate it will raise $410 million a year in Pennsylvania to invest in clean energy and new jobs.
The fossil fuel and energy industries and the Republican leaders in the state Legislature strongly oppose it, claiming it will cost jobs, create a new tax and force closure of power plants.
The Pa. House and Senate are expected to vote on an amended HB 637 soon that would bar the Department of Environmental protection from joining the RGGI or “any similar effort” to control carbon pollution.
The amended bill provides for a one-time infusion of $250 million while RGGI will produce hundreds of millions of dollars a year. It is a bad bill intended only to keep our state out of RGGI. Tell your elected representatives you oppose it.
Find your representatives at https://www.legis.state.pa.us/.
To learn more about RGGI, click here.